[Gwendoline Christie:] Brienne is very focused on a moral code, on the good of the world around her and what is right. But in their bathtub scene, she recognizes his humanity, and his own struggle with what it is to be honorable. She’s also seeing something of him in her – she’s seeing his striving for the good of all, to an extent. It’s a revelatory moment. It really expands Brienne’s mind, shows her not to regard everything as being quite so black and white. We start to see the complexity of a person’s mind developing.
[Sean T. Collins:] Nikolaj described Jaime’s time with Brienne in much the same way. She’s shown him something outside the closed systems of the Lannisters and the Kingsguard.
They’re quite similar people in terms of their psychology and their lives. They found a kind of symmetry, somehow. A kinship. Brienne has certainly never had a relationship with a man like Jamie. I mean, in terms of physical proximity and what they share emotionally, this is the closest she’s ever been with any man that she’s not been related to certainly, but probably with any man, full stop. For the pair of them, there’s a moment of enormous expansion where everything they’ve regarded as normal and set in stone prior is changed, and there’s a multitude of possiblities.
Is romance one of those possibilities?
Do I think they will get together?[Laughs] I mean, it’s very … The world ofGame of Thrones, the world that George R.R. Martin has created and that Dan [Weiss] and David [Benioff]’s translation adapts brilliantly, is a world that’s never straightforward. I genuinely have moments of absolutely no idea. I don’t even know if Iwantthem to, because what they’re experiencing is a bond that is quite unusual and quite pure bond. He did come back and save her life, which is enormous. I think it makes us examine a lot of possibilities and angles of what love is, and what love makes us capable of.
And Brienne is a virgin and Jamie has only slept with his sister, so … [Laughs]. We’re looking at two highly unusual individuals. I don’t think that anyone genuinely can predict the way in which their relationship will go in any regard. Genuine and true love is so rare that when you encounter it in any form, it’s a wonderful thing, to be utterly cherished in whatever form it takes.
I enjoy asking these questions about shipping, because it’s absolutely one of the pleasures of fiction. But I worry that it flattens the range of intimacy that is available to human beings. To force it all into a romantic or sexual framework is to deny a lot of human experience.
Yeah. But at the same time, we wll want to see the impossible actually happen, to see these two extraordinary characters reach that amazing stage. Everyone’s a sucker for some love and romance and whatever that may bring. But with those two? Lord knows.[Laughs]I mean, he couldn’t even say goodbye to her! He just kind of nods and looks at the floor and leaves. If anything, it’s the virgin that’s making great strides. [Laughs]
I interviewed Gwendoline Christie for Rolling Stone. Even by the high standards of a uniformly insightful and intelligent cast, this interview was something else, man.
Game of Thrones Q&A: Gwendoline Christie on the Education of Brienne of Tarth | Rolling Stone: